


Isolation

by sshysmm



Category: Lymond Chronicles - Dorothy Dunnett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Missing Persons, Sibling Love, the band Au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2021-01-26 21:30:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21380878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sshysmm/pseuds/sshysmm
Summary: At a press-conference, Richard is faced with a question that rocks him and makes him reflect on recent losses.--Written for Whumptober 2019, set in the Band AU I've been writing (see collections).--There's 31 of these ficlets and I apologise profusely for burying other work in the tags. I will *always* tag these as 'the band au' and you can usethis nifty extension (ao3rdr)to block the tag if this isn't your thing and isn't what you want to see in the Lymond tags!
Kudos: 4
Collections: Ficlets in the Lymond Band AU for Whumptober 2019





	Isolation

**Author's Note:**

> [Originally posted on tumblr, 7 October 2019.](https://notasapleasure.tumblr.com/post/188189213039/how-does-it-feel-to-be-the-last-remaining)

"How does it feel to be the last remaining Crawford child?"

The words seemed to hit Richard bodily between the eyes, and he was lost, his mouth agape in the flash of the journalists' cameras. Microphones wavered, thrust forward with expectation, and he gripped the edges of the lectern, trying to summon the words he wanted to say. "I..." he shook his head. It still did not make any sense to him.

How could he explain the feeling of his heart each time he caught sight of a head of blonde hair in a crowd? There was tangible, physical pain unlike anything he had ever known he could experience: his ribcage clasped a tight grip about his organs and the air within him fought back with its own pressure. He saw teenagers laughing and wanted to shout at them to stop; he looked at the brave face his mother put on and he wondered if he really knew her at all.

He had hoped, after Gavin died, that Francis might simply reappear - and why not Eloise, also? There was no evidence of death in either case, they had simply dissipated into the neon aether of New York and London's sulphurous smog respectively. They were gone, and yet they were everywhere he looked, blurring the world with a nostalgia he did not know how to articulate: the yellow clouded dawn was somehow like Eloise's smoky eye make-up and scruffy school plait; TV shots of the Hudson glittering a reflection of glass and steel recalled the way Francis' smile could twinkle, or the sparkle of his eyes when something caught his interest.

Richard should have looked after them. He had always looked after them. When had he started to believe it when they told him they didn't need that any longer?

Ageless, was the word people often used around his siblings. _Old souls_. But Richard knew they had been goofy kids like anyone else: Richard had held Francis upside down by his ankles as he shrieked laughter over the rose beds. He had sprinted with Eloise to get to the newsagent in time for the latest issue of _Smash Hits!_ and he had watched both of them throw tantrums when they lost family board games or kickabouts in the garden. He should have seen them drifting too soon into depths they weren't ready for, too eager to escape childhood and define their own terms.

Then Richard would think ruefully of how Gavin had done so much to make them dissatisfied with what should have been the years of blissful ignorance; to belittle and batter down hope. He would rue the day he had left for university, and the conversation in which his father had persuaded him to take up the internship in Washington immediately afterwards. Returning, he found a shy boy doing his best impression of a cultured traveller and a little girl who had already decided the future had nothing to offer her.

"Mr Crawford is here to answer questions about his decision to join the Scottish Nationalist Party. He will not be speaking on personal matters."

Richard let the aide shoulder him aside and looked up, red-eyed at the banks of journalists. The cameras flashed and made his face sting with heat and emotion. His collar was tight on his throbbing windpipe and the darkness behind him was as hard to think about as the hungry public in front.

How did it feel to be the last remaining Crawford child?

Wrong. As wrong as anything could be. He was asked to be the spokesperson for lives that would have done things he could never imagine, and the guardian of memories that only told half the story.

Richard knew he would give anything to have either of them back; it did not occur to him that, if this happened, their stories might have diverged yet more from what he remembered.


End file.
